


Hamelin

by fivefootnothing



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivefootnothing/pseuds/fivefootnothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An infestation of a different kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hamelin

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Гамельн](https://archiveofourown.org/works/364428) by [Regis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regis/pseuds/Regis)



So, where you headed?

There? Look, no one goes there. Not since...

Well, I suppose I should tell you the story from the beginning.

It wasn't a bad sort of town. I mean, the streets could've been a bit better tended. I can't tell you how many times my fillings got shook loose rumbling through those potholed roads on my motor bike. It was mostly a shortcut sort of place, y'know? Somewhere you pass through on the way to somewhere else. Anyway. They didn't have a decent shopping district and their mayor was pretty much a dolt.

I think that's why...okay. Getting ahead of myself here.

About two years ago. That's when it all happened. I sort of pieced together the story after the fact from the survivors. Oh, yeah. There were survivors.

Poor bastards.

You've heard about it, right? That's why you want to go and scope the place out. The Great Infestation. Now, they _say_ it was rats. but I know better. I've seen one. Well, the blown-up remnants of one, and believe you me, no bloody way was it rats.

They were machines.

Don't take the mick! I'm telling the truth.

They were these things that looked like, I dunno, large shrimps or silverfish made of metal. It was just one or two at first, and people thought they were some sort of advert. Or some uni prank. Didn't think too much of 'em. And if you ask me, they should've got rid of them at the beginning. Cos, y'know rats. Rats'll chew things up, get at food. These things? They went for anything electrical. Seemed like they couldn't get enough of the wiring.

And then they started breeding.

Yeah, yeah. I know. How can machines breed? But they did, somehow. First there were two, then there were dozens, hundreds. And they got into all the wiring. Telephones, gone. Electricity, gone. Any modern conveniences? Gone.

Then _he_ came.

No one's sure who he actually was, but everyone who'd seen him all said the same thing. He was blond-haired and young and dressed, well, he was dressed in a cricketing costume. All red and white stripes and he had a light-colored frock coat on. And this bit, this bit's the weirdest bit. He had a stalk of celery stitched onto his lapel.

I swear, not making this up.

Some people said he came alone, but I have it on pretty good authority that he had two other people with him, two girls. Anyway, he said he could help the town get rid of the...the things. People asked him if he was some sort of exterminator, and no one will ever forget his reaction.

He laughed.

He laughed like exterminating was the funniest thing in the whole wide world.

So, if he wasn't the exterminator, the people asked who he was.

He said he was the Doctor.

He promised to get rid of the things within three days, and then he disappeared. Not like, really disappeared, but people didn't glimpse him again until the time came. He got to the middle of the town, right? And he held this...instrument. Like bagpipes, they said.

Big, shiny, silver bagpipes.

It wasn't like he played them, more like he switched it on. And it made this horrible din, and the things all came swarming. Out from under the buildings, out from between crevices, from the tops of the telephone poles. They came from everywhere and they all surged towards him.

He made a run for it, went outside the town. And every single one of those things followed. Out of the town and into the river. They all drowned.

Well, not all of them.

Cuz the mayor. You remember, I told you about him at the beginning? The major kept a single one. Not sure why. Maybe he thought that keeping one wouldn't hurt any. Maybe there wasn't enough excitement in the town for the mayor to do anything so he hoped the thing would multiply again. Maybe he thought he could use the thing somehow. Dunno.

The Doctor didn't ask for anything in return. No money, no promises. He just wanted to be left alone. He and his friends left the town and didn't come back. And it was peaceful, for awhile.

Until people started disappearing.

People the mayor knew, at first. Friends and family and then neighbors. And then children. They all went missing. And it wasn't like they were taken or kidnapped. Some of these people left notes, packed their bags as if going on holiday. Took off into the countryside.

It's like they were being called away, led somewhere else, y'know?

I mean, it had to be the Doctor. Who else could it be? He made a gizmo that called those metal things to him. How much effort could it be to haul off a few people?

Pretty soon, only a handful of people were left in town. And no one could figure out why they weren't called. Maybe it was a mixup in their brains or maybe because they were too ill to walk but they never got compelled to leave.

Then someone came back.

I say someone, but I mean some_thing_. Something large and metal, clunking about the town. A monster.

But the people who stayed behind, the people who didn't get called, they thought the thing acted familiar. The thing knew their names and begged and pleaded for them to join it. To become like it. All metal and wires and electronic parts. And when they said no, the thing started killing them.

That's when the survivors fled the town. That's when I met up with some of them and they told me the whole story from the beginning. Of the weird metal animal shapes that infested the town and then the weird young man who got rid of them all. And about how an entire town was wiped out or transformed or...or...

You think I'm lying? Then let me give you a warning. You're about to head into that forsaken little town. Keep an eye out for something that's out of place, something like an old police box that shouldn't be there. If you see that box? You run. You run and you don't stop running, cos he's going to take you away.

The Doctor'll take you away and you won't ever be the same afterwards.


End file.
